The American Association of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) released a very important new policy statement that details their position surrounding the prescribing of opioids to cancer patients. This issue has taken the forefront of controversy as our society increasingly becomes concerned about the overuse of prescription opioids, sometimes leaving out the very specific needs of cancer [...]
Recently our long time partner, Patient Power (https://www.patientpower.info) has produced a number of videos that are of significant interest to all members of the prostate cancer community. Darryl Mitteldorf, Executive Director of Malecare talks about Malecare and what it does for men with cancer at: https://malecare.org Darryl Mitteldorf, founder of the National LGBT Cancer Project [...]
Malecare not only is the world’s largest prostate cancer support and education organization it also is responsible for prostate cancer research which has been recognized and published by the world’s largest organization of oncologists, the American Society of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO). At the last ASCO GU Conference Malecare presented a poster and had published an [...]
I just returned, along with Malecare’s Executive Director Darryl Mitteldorf and Dr. Wendy Lebowitz, from the ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco. The three of us often attend this meeting, but this one had a new and very special item, a research poster (abstract no. 253) that was presented by Malecare and Mitteldorf. The [...]
In the treatment of prostate cancer the first very expensive drug we had that was FDA approved was Provenge, with an initial cost of $93,000 for a one-month’s treatment protocol. Today, the cost is in excess of $106,000. According to the phase III clinical trial result Provenge extends life by a median of 4.1 months, [...]
In a presentation at the ASCO Annual Meeting, Dr. Andrew Himelstein, MD, FACP of the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute, presented the results of a trial evaluating Zoledronic Acid (Zometa) at a dosing schedule of every 12 weeks as opposed to the current standard of care of every 4 weeks. The trial included [...]
Last year after the ASCO meeting in Chicago I declared that there was one particular presentation of the CHAARTED trial that would be a game changer for the treatment of newly diagnosed men with very significant prostate cancer. The game changer was that men diagnosed with significant disease and who were still ADT naive (not [...]
It is important that survivors keep up on the professional standards of our doctors to make sure that we receive the best care and the most current care. It is easy for doctors to just do it the way they were first trained, even if their training was twentyor thirty years ago. Recent news includes [...]
Now that we have new treatments available to fight advanced, metastatic prostate cancer we need ways to decide on the best treatments given that many of the treatments occupy the same disease space. This is especially important with the soaring costs of many treatments as well as the need to not waste time by giving [...]
The novel radiopharmaceutical radium-223 (Xofigo) appears to have long term safety with minimal adverse events. In an updated report, given at ASCO GU, on the ALSYMPCA trial of radium-233 (Xofigo), the researchers have found that there is no major safety issues identified within ~1.5 years after the completion of treatment in a population of men [...]
